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Here's What's Really In the Foods You're Eating

You're a smart, health-minded person, but you may be unknowingly downing sneaky sugars and heart-stopping fats. Research...

You're a smart, health-minded person, but you may be unknowingly downing sneaky sugars and heart-stopping fats. Research from the International Food Information Council shows that most people will look at one piece of information on the label - like if the package says "low fat" - you'll think 'Great!', not realizing that it's still high in calories. So, here's what's really in the foods you're eating - so you can shop and eat smarter. This comes from Dr. Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University. Frozen pizza. One popular brand has a list of more than 50 ingredients! Two of them are preservatives that can also be found in jet fuel, eye shadow, and embalming fluid. If that's not bad enough, it has 30 calories more per slice than organic brands. So what should you look out for? The number of ingredients. The more there are, the more processed the food is. So the shorter the list, the more pronounceable it is, the healthier the food is. Now, you know we're not big fans of soda on this show, but did you know, that the amount of phosphoric acid in ONE CAN of regular and diet cola is enough to leach calcium from your bones? According to Tufts University, if you're drinking three cans a day, you'll have 5% lower bone density. Now here's one of the trickiest words you'll see on food packaging: lean. It's the Jedi mind trick of food marketers. People see it and think "healthy," "skinny," "low cal." According to Dr. Wansink it guarantees nothing. Let's take ground beef. Lean ground beef can still be 20% fat - that's 45 grams of fat in one burger - almost your limit for the entire day! A portion of that fat is the artery clogging saturated kind. So, look for meat that's 90% lean or more. That qualifies it as "low fat." Finally, some energy bars have as much saturated fat as a candy bar. It may have added vitamins or protein, but in the end, it's no different than eating a Snickers and popping a multi-vitamin. Dr. Wansink says, ignore the health halo around energy bars - check the calorie and fat content before you grab one. A healthy bar will have 200 calories and only two grams of saturated fat.